Apple Watch Series 4 is widely-presumed to be announced at the American tech giant’s upcoming hardware event on September 12.
The trillion-dollar company recently invited media outlets to the Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino where new iPhones are also expected to be shown off.
Apple Watch Series 4 is expected to improve upon everything its predecessor did right.
The wearable has been highly rumoured to tout a display with severely reduced bezels while retaining the same overall footprint of previous Apple Watch models.
This could allow it to remain compatible with current straps that have become increasingly popular with Apple fans over the years.
Such speculation was heightened last week when 9to5Mac posted alleged images of the Apple Watch Series 4 ahead of its anticipated debut.
The publication insisted the image shown was not a mockup, hinting instead it had obtained official marketing material from Apple.
The alleged unit appears to be taking cues from the iPhone X by presenting users with a bigger display overall.
And now rumours are swirling Apple could be planning to bring a highly-requested feature to its wearable line.
A patent registered by the Cupertino-based tech giant discusses “compression techniques for burn-in”, suggesting Apple could be planning to bring always-on functionality to the Apple Watch Series 4.
The Apple Watch uses an OLED display, however this technology’s biggest downfall is burn-in.
This is where content that is repeatedly shown on the panel can be embedded into it, meaning even if the content is not meant to be displaying on the screen it might still be present.
All OLED panels suffer from the problem, but Apple appears determined to minimise the visibility of burn-in with its new patent.
A section of the document reads: “Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays – which are becoming a popular choice for computing device displays – can degrade in a non-uniform manner over their lifespans and lead to unwanted colour/brightness artefacts.
“To address this concern, burn-in statistics – which record historical usage information associated with a given OLED display – can be used to artificially adjust the operation of the OLED display to substantially restore visual uniformity throughout its operation.
“Notably, such burn-in statistics can take the form of a high-resolution, multiple-channel image that consumes a considerable amount of storage space within the computing device in which the OLED display is included.
“For obvious reasons, this consumption can dissatisfy users as their overall expected amount of available storage space is reduced for seemingly unknown reasons. It is therefore desirable to store the burn-in statistics in a more efficient manner.”
The patent hints Apple could adjust colours and brightness of screen areas that have been affected by burn-in to make it much less noticeable for users.
This could allow the company to implement an always-on screen with as little display compromises as possible.
Always-on functionality is already offered by Samsung’s Galaxy Watch – the device touts an AMOLED panel that will also suffer from burn-in the more it is used.